


nebula

by asiren (meliorismo)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: AU: Grantaire Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Catholic Character, Grantaire & Éponine Thénardier Friendship, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-18 00:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13670370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliorismo/pseuds/asiren
Summary: The coat was so red that it looked like Enjolras was always covered in blood.





	nebula

**Author's Note:**

> once upon a time, i had this fic that i wrote three years back and that i really liked the theme, but the writing was very poor. so i decided to do it again, less experimental this time, and more focused. it was, though, a work of three hours, so i guess i cant keep my hopes too high hahah anyway, this one is unrevised. sorry about that.

_They went to God’s Right Hand—_

_That Hand is amputated now_

_And God cannot be found—_

_/_

_The abdication of Belief_

_Makes the Behavior small—_

_Better an ignis fatuus_

_Than no illume at all—_

emily dickinson

 

“God is always watching”, Grantaire’s mom told him. “He sees everything.”

“Who said that to you?” he asked, then, because he never knew when to stop or how to shut up.

“Father Theodore, of course.” she said, as if it was very obvious. Agathe found herself a little worried that maybe her son wasn’t the brightest apple in the basket. “You would know that if you stopped skipping church. What can be more important than the salvation of your soul?”

_Booze,_ Grantaire thought — which didn’t mean, of course, that he could say that to his mom. She would drop dead on the spot, killed by the sheer force of her heartbreak and regret. Agathe was very dramatic, since she had been raised as the daughter of a painter. Her bad attitude was probably the result of a failed career as an actress; suddenly, after the death of her parents, life became very difficult for her. And with a small child, what could she possibly do? She got married to a merchant and left behind the life she loved, and that was so full of colors. Grantaire knew it was hard. He couldn’t quite grasp what his life would be if he wasn’t an artist.

Anyway, Agathe’s husband — Grantaire’s adoptive father — was long dead. All that was left of him was the unbreakable faith in the Catholic god, and Agathe carried on with the saints and the tombs as if it was her job and fate.

(it was in the church that grantaire started drinking)

“I’m busy, mom.” he ended up saying, quietly, trying to avoid waking his sister up. Céline was asleep on the couch, motionless, her face pillowed by her arms. She was only eight years old, which make her ten whole years younger than Grantaire. It was a whole life between them; an abysm. “I have to go.”

“It’s another of your art classes?”

“Yes.”

“Last time you came back smelling like a tavern.”

“Mom! Céline could hear you.”

“Your sister is asleep, and she is worst than you. The roof would have to fall over her head for her to wake up before mid-afternoon.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes, already tired of that conversation. They moved through the same lines, the same routines, every time the church was mentioned — which, with Agathe, meant every single day. She was rallying the crusade of his salvation, determined to drag him back to God. He wouldn’t, though. Let the angels save Céline; his path was elsewhere.

“I’m leaving, mom.”

“Can you at least go and confess your sins? I will leave you alone if you do this one thing to me. I can stand you only going to church twice a year. Just go there and talk to Father Theodore; he won’t judge you.”

“How can you know? Is it because he was chosen by heaven?”

“Yes, but there’s more.” she said, steely. Grantaire could tell that she was almost at her breaking point — he had to stop talking back if he wished her to let him go out at all. “He never judged _me_.”

“What did you do that was so wrong? I do think our sins are a little different.”

“Can you spare some chance to your mom?” she asked, a little sad. “I had you out of any marriage.”

“It wasn’t like you could drag my father by the foot. I mean, not even grandpa wanted you to stay with him…”

“Wouldn’t do any difference if he wanted, since your father never intended to marry me.”

“He was an idiot.”

“He was… I think he died a few years back.”

“Mom, I have to—”

“Go to church, love.” she said to his back, since he was already with half the body out of the door. “Do it for me, if not for you.”

Grantaire sighed, and then nodded. Agathe smiled, but not for long. When the door was closed she started the painful job of waking Céline up, muttering _we have to go, angel. We have to go._

**//**

He was yelling at Enjolras, as was usual. He just couldn’t stand his martyr discourse. Grantaire couldn’t stop going to meetings, though; there was something touching about a small group really believing that they could pull off that sad excuse of a barricade. Everyone was going to die; all of them were doomed. Even the people around him, usually so hopeful, looked grim with the certain of failure and death. They would still try, though; even if they died, or so said Enjolras, they could bring the people some glint of hope.

It was dumb, all of that. Garbage. A revolution doesn’t happen twice, especially when the first one was such a stupid mess; in the end, nothing changed. France was still chained to its past, and would always be.

“Can’t you see?” Grantaire yelled, his hand itching to stangle Enjolras for being fucking stupid. How someone this smart could be so terribly _blind_? “You say that there’s no other way, and maybe that’s true. Maybe you’re right.”

“Then you agree—”

“ _B_ _ut_ this isn’t a good choice either! Is it really a way out when there’s just a wall of solid bricks on the other side? This thing you’re suggesting, it’s going to get us killed. It’s going to be the responsible for our _death._ Everyone, Enjolras. Every single person in this room is going to _die,_ because you can’t ever back the fuck down!”

“Some things”, Enjolras said, looking like God with his blond hair, and with the light that entered through the window almost making a halo around him. Grantaire’s avenging angel. “are worth dying for.”

Grantaire stared at him, speechless with that man who would lead all of his friends straight into the arms of Death — the knight — if that meant they were going to live forever. Write their names into history, make a difference. “You’re wrong”, he said, defeated, “because some things can be paid with blood, but not all of them.”

**//**

_Pacient number 781, room 12_ , said the board at the door, fixed there with a pin. The words looked like they were leaving in a rush; one over the other as if on a competition they couldn’t afford to lose. Grantaire thought it was the mean nurse’s fault. She was so cold, her voice could freeze the fucking desert.

“How are you feeling today?”, a young doctor asked him. Grantaire noticed that he was very careful in avoiding the issue of Grantaire’s refusal to say his name. The nurses were calling him _Unknown_ but maybe the doctors were more fancy than that. He hated it — self-righteous people always made him think of Enjolras.

“Where am I?” he asked, absent-minded. His mother would be so angry. She always said you shouldn’t answer a question with another.

“St. Louis. You don’t remember?”

“Not really”, he muttered, “not really.”

“You’re safe.” the doctor told him, with this annoying comforting tone. As if he were trying to calm down a feral small thing, that had been so beaten and hurt that it wasn’t a threat anymore.

“What day is it?”

“We are in September. 22nd.”

_September. It’s Éponine’s birthday._ “How long have I been here?”

“It’s okay”, said the doctor, “it’s going to be okay.”

“I want to leave this place—”

“It’s okay”, said the doctor, as if he was a parrot, “it’s going to be okay.”

Grantaire threw at him a glass of water, and the mean nurse entered the room to try to, very angrily, sedate him.

(She was successful).

**//**

The sunlight used to make Enjolras’s hair look exactly the same tone of this watch Courfeyrac liked and used constantly, two years before that. He sold it to pay the printer that they had contracted because of the pamphlets — after that, he couldn’t afford another one. At the time, Grantaire thought about paying it himself, since Courfeyrac looked as if he was in actual physical pain. He couldn’t, though, even if he really wanted to (and he did); the last penny of his mother’s inheritance was spent to support the rally about the state of the prisons in the country.

Enjolras was always in that red coat. Grantaire used to wonder if he had any other winter clothing, but he was too afraid to really ask, because it could be true. He knew Enjolras was once the first son of a very wealthy man, but he didn’t know anything else. Maybe Enjolras had been dishonored — God knew that there was a lot of reasons that would make someone cut him off.

The coat was so red that it looked like Enjolras was always covered in blood.

“I knew you didn’t really want to be a part of this.” he yelled at Grantaire, as always, pointing his fist right at Grantaire’s chest, as if he had to physically stop himself of committing murder. And so close to the Important Day!

“It isn’t about _wanting._ I’m already drowning in this mess, and I’ve been doing it for years. Or have you forgot who was always here? Have you forgot about everything I sacrificed for you? And don’t tell me you never asked, because you did. With all the letters.”

“Everyone has the right to walk away.” he said, angrily.

“Then why are you only offering this to me? Just say it. You can’t stand being wrong about someone. You can’t stand the possibility that I’m going through with this.”

“That’s not it.” Enjolras sighed, sounding exhausted. He knew that he was living in borrowed time. He had to fix it while he still could. “Is it so bad that I want you to live?”

“Yes.” Grantaire answered him, promptly. “Because you would be dooming me to be the only one left behind.”

“There’s hope.” Enjolras muttered. “There’s always hope.”

“It’s not winnable, Apollo.” Grantaire touched his face, his golden hair, his lips. “We are going to die.”

“We have to do it… We can’t stop now.”

“They won’t rise with us.”

“They did once.”

“It’s too late now, love. It had always been.”

**//**

“What’s your name?” asked a new doctor. This one was a very small woman, who held her papers as if she was planning to kill someone with it. As a general impression, she looked unimpressed.

“I don’t speak doctor.” Grantaire answered her, because he was feeling like he could use annoying someone. She sighed, as if saying _Suit yourself._

“How are you feeling today? The nurse told me you didn’t eat your lunch.”

“You already know all about me, since the other doctor is terribly in love with gossiping.”

“I have more things to do. Important things.” she stressed, leaving no room for arguments. Grantaire wanted to run away from that small, white room. There was nothing in it but a bed, two chairs and a little table — everything was claustrophobic. The chairs were the saddest, since there wasn’t anyone left to visit him at the hospital.

He was the last one standing.

“Everyone I knew is dead”, he told her, voice flat. “So I guess that I feel fucking fantastic.”

**//**

When Grantaire got out, he made by himself a gravestone for Epónine. The others’ families had already done something for them, even Enjolras’s, and someone had pity over Gavroche, since he was just a child, but no one at all did anything for her. So he did one himself, and in it he craved, with small letters:

Éponine Thénardier, 09/07. Beloved friend and sister. May she rest in peace at home with God.

And he said, when he finally put it on the ground, _Amen_.

["Hail Mary, full of grace, our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." the sobbing continued. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, _Amen_ ].

**//**

“I love him.” Grantaire told her, who looked as if she wanted to hit him very hard. _Foolish_ , he could see her thinking. _Can’t make a good choice to save his life._ “Éponine, I mean it. I can’t live without him.”

“Which use your death will serve him?”

“How can you ask me such a thing, when you’re walking into that hell because Marius is going to die? Can’t you say that you understand?”

“No.” she answered him, as if it was that simple. “Because I’m already tired of this life, so it doesn’t matter to me either way. But you have a way out, Grantaire. You can go to someone in the british side of your family. Just leave while you still can.”

“I can’t”, he repeated. “I just can’t leave all of you to die alone.”

“We won’t be alone; we have each other. In the end, it’s going to be enough.”

“I can’t.”

“He is going to be the death of you — can’t you _see_?”

“Of you, too.”

She sighed, eyes full of tears and her cheek very red. She wouldn’t cry — all her tears were wasted raising Gavroche by herself. “I want to be buried near you.”

“You will”, he lied, as if he could fulfil a promise like that. “you will.”

**//**

“You’re going to tell me what happened?” asked a police officer, who looked bored out of his mind.

“I was shot.” he answered, as if it was easy as that. As if he could put that last few hours of hell in this small word, as if he could explain how he watched every single person he ever loved fall side by side.

“By who?”

“Someone.”

“You had to understand, I’m trying to determine if a crime happened.”

“Well, I was shot, wasn’t I?”

“A crime that you committed.” he clarified, and Grantaire’s nodded.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Were you trespassing?”

“No.”

“Were you drinking?”

_Yes_. “No.”

“Were you doing anything at all that can configure as a crime?”

_Yes._ “No.”

“Can you state your name for me?”

“I can’t remember.”

The officer sighed. “Fine. We’re done here.”

They looked at each other a last time, as if the man was trying to size how big of a threat Grantaire could possibly be (close to none), and then left, without looking back.

**//**

“My dear, my very best friend!” Grantaire yelled, while trying to open a bottle of wine. He wasn’t being very successful, since he was drinking since dawn. “It’s her birthday, twenty two! Such an amazing woman, such an amazing mother!”

Everyone cheered, including Éponine herself, who was holding an almost empty cup of what was probably vodka. She looked young and hopeful, like a person who had all the time in the world right in front of her. Gavroche was trying to steal some booze from Jehan, who was too sober to let him. She grabbed Gavroche by the arm immediately, like she had this superpower who always told her when Gavroche was going to ruin anything. Grantaire thought it was mother instinct. Éponine raised that fool since he was two years old.

Grantaire thought about his own mother, who had killed herself and her daughter when Grantaire was eighteen. He never understood why she didn’t left Céline for him to take care. He could have made it work; like Éponine, he would’ve step up to the task. But she didn’t, probably worried it wasn’t Grantaire’s burden to bear, and now it was too late. They were resting side by side close by Agathe’s mother and father.

He stopped thinking about the past, since it was such a dreadful thing, and managed to open the wine. Musichetta clapped, and Joly joined her — he _was_ a systematic pleaser. Éponine looked happy, which was all Grantaire could have wanted anyway; the only sober person in the room was Enjolras, who had drank juice and water the whole day.

“There’s cake in your cheek”, Grantaire told him, giggling a little. “In your left cheek, not the right one.”

“Do you even know the difference between the two in the state you’re in?”

“I drink all the time, Apollo.” he answered, very dignified. “You’re mistaken me with Jehan, who can’t hold his liquor at all.”

“If you say so.”

“Anyway”, he touched Enjolras’s face with the tip of his fingers. “I like the color of your eyes.”

“You said you hated blue.”

“Eh. I lied to you. You shouldn’t believe anything that I ever said.”

“You said you liked me.”

“Well”, Grantaire thought about that, and Enjolras smiled. “that one is true. Just this one.”

“I love you.” he told Grantaire, sounding very sad.

“I love you too, Enjolras.” Grantaire muttered, oblivious. “I really do.”

**//**

“We won’t fight this alone.” he heard Enjolras’s voice, which was coming from the bathroom. He sounded frantic. “The people will rise, and we won’t fight this alone.”

Grantaire rested his face against the door, trying hard not to cry. He had to be strong, because the days were passing and Enjolras was falling apart. His God was starting to feel doubt, but it was too late. It had always been.

“We won’t fight this alone”, Enjolras’s repeated. “we won’t fight…”

**//**

“You’re amazing.” Grantaire told him, curling a lock of blond hair around his finger.

“And you are _very_ drunk.”

They were lying in their bed, Enjolras reading the newspaper and Grantaire’s trying to stay awake just a little bit longer. As the day approached it was getting harder and harder to see him, because he was always busy with small conspirations with the others. Grantaire was afraid for him. He was afraid for every single one of them.

“You’re going to change the world, Apollo. You’ll see.”

“You don’t really think so.”

“I do”, he said, solemnly. “And I’ll be right there with you.”

**//**

They did indeed go to a picnic at their backyard, the closest they ever got to going out on a date. Enjolras didn't do date night, and Grantaire, theoretically, didn't care.

**//**

grantaire left hyacinths at the grave of every single one of them, for as long as he lived and then more.

  


[to some, hyacinths meant _never dies_ ].


End file.
